A another possible new chassis from 3Racing?

Looks like 3Racing may be up to something again. On their website they have a new car listed. The F113. No pics, no details with the exception of the gratuitous "Coming Soon", there are 2 each front wings and rear wings listed in the parts department. Both of them Old School wings. No clue as to what they are up to, but I like it. I am not in the market for another F1 car, but I wasn't in the market for one the last 3 F1 cars I have bought. So we will see. I am in the process of thinning the herd right now. Simply to make room for more of course.

New Tamiya F104W Lotus 102B?

Ok I was snooping around trying to find info on the new F104 Pro V2, and turned up nothing new there. But, on Tamiyas site in the Coming Soon/F1 they posted just a name. Tamiya F104W Lotus 102B. No other information  but the MSRP of $275.00. Tamiya is definitely enjoying the F1 surge as much as the rest of us. Dont know if its just another standard F104W with another body or what. But its something. I do like the body. link

New from F1Paintlab

The F1Paintlab is about to release several new decal sheets. Here is a sneak peak at what they have in the works.

MantisWorx FGX IFS System

MantisWorx in Houston is working on his own IFS system for the FGX, a bit different approach than the one I posted last week, but looks just as promising. HE is testing it out now, and I of course will update as more is known. He knows what he is doing so we should have some feedback soon. His is designed with asphalt racing in mind.

FGX from Australia

This was posted on RCTech today in the FGX thread. Nice paint job. I think I am going to start posting nice cars I see, there are just so many good ones, they need to be seen by as many as possible This is one of them. By RedBullRacing on RCTech. The Lotus E20

Racing 4/21

Very eventful race day. Not much of it good but I set myself up for it. I will start with F1. We had seven in F1, again the biggest class on the carpet. Basically my car was junk all day long, grossly over steering. First 2 heats equaled 1 lap each. Broken front arms. I could have sworn I sold my FGX. And since I was only getting one lap at a time it was really hard to find the culprit. 3rd heat I don't remember a whole lot of, there wasn't a whole lot of it any way, but I was traction rolling, and ended up knocking my sensor wire out of the motor. At Roberts advice, I made a front end adjustment, basically raised the front end 1mm. Normally I would lower it for the problems I had, but I had been doing that already. And we noticed nice little black marks on the under side of the wing where I was touching carpet. Not good. I should have noticed that a long time ago, but since I wasn't tinkering all week, I didn't catch it. That will learn me. In the Main the car was better, it still wanted to over steer, and I still rolled it a couple of times, but it was much more manageable and I finished the race fourth. After the mains, the light bulb turned on above my head, and I realized what I should have done to begin with. Change back to the medium fronts. The F1 softs were just too grippy. I made the switch, made a few laps, and instantly was back to a controllable car. Good, I will be ready for the Summer Series next week. For those of you that were there and are reading this, yes, I purposely left out the part where I broke the F1R in half. Thanks.

WGT. Fun, these cars have so much grip its insane. You can keep the throttle pegged almost the entire lap if its set up close. I ended up the day with my car set up pretty well, thanks to Robert, Larry Bradshaw and Yang Li. Knocked .7 seconds off my best lap of the day, and improved a lap in the main over qualifiers. I have a better servo in it for next week as well as a speedo. We will see what happens Sunday. Looking forward to it.

Pre Race Prep for 4/21

Been 2 weeks since I had an RC on the track. Mikes ran a big weekend Off road event last weekend so carpet was covered. Needless to say, I am chomping at the bit to go race tomorrow. I am almost done charging my 1 cells for WGT and will get my F1 lipos done there after. Both cars are as ready to race as I can get them at home. The WGT may get a new servo and esc tomorrow between heats but what's in it will work if need be. I really don't know what to expect in either class. No clue on attendance, not holding my breath for a big show. Every time I think we are going to have a big turn out, we barely have enough for a program. Friggin carpet guys are so fickle! Really not alot to do here but make sure I have all my tools and equipment together and load up and leave in the morning. Decided on a whim to run my old Gerhard Berger Mclaren body tomorrow just for shits and giggles. That is about as intense as my pre-race prep has been this week. I haven't fiddled with either car since last time I posted about them. I was however tinkering with one of the F109s, it is just electronics and turnbuckles away from being track ready. I have that stuff laying around somewhere, just haven't muscled up the motivation to do it. Still jacking with that 4 cell GTB esc, trying to get it to work. Will get a new switch tomorrow and see if that does the trick. If so, it will go into the F109 and it just may be put up in the classifieds. Or it may get a new body and get back on track sometime. Time will tell.

WGT. First try tomorrow. Low expectations, in fact, no expectations. Its my first time running a WGT in a race, the guys that run WGT are the same fast guys in 1/12 scale. Robert is one of them. I'm in it  for the fun, my SpeedMerchant order wont make it in time for tomorrow so I will have the shock mount and springs for next weekend and the first race of the Summer Series. So I will get a full race weekend with the stock set up, and be able to tell a difference next weekend when I make changes. Tinkering, errr I mean, set up is fun.

For those REALLY bored and on Twitter for some odd reason tomorrow, I probably will post random tweets from Mikes. Don't expect any earth shattering bits of knowledge. But, I would guess ya ll wouldn't expect much of that from me would you? I will tweet random observations, pics, and other tidbits of lunacy as the day goes by, if I remember. My 3 year old crew chief will be wrenching for me the first half of the day so my hands will literally be full for a while. Til next time, later.

Tamiya F104 Vers. II Pro pic

Got a pic or at least a drawing of the Tamiya F104 vers 2 pro. Totally revamped rear end with the 1/12 scale RM-01 link suspension. No Damper plate. Reminiscent of the CRC pod on the left side. More as I find it.

FGX IFS System Conversion.

TQ posted some more pics and a video today, so Im going to share them with you. Car is in final version. Looks evil on the track, sounds like a demon as well. Love it. Fun to watch. See for yourself.

Classic James Hunt

F1RCGP HK Round 2 GP Class A Main Final 1-3

New stuff from SpeedMerchant

Bruce and the gang at Speedmerchant have released several new parts for their 1/12 Rev 7 and the 1/10 WGT3 this week. I have the new front springs and the Optional Top plates/shock mounts on the way. I will of course tell you all about them when I try them out but honestly, Speedmerchant just TQ'd and won the WGT Carpet Nats with all this stuff. TQ'd Snowbirds, won 1/12 at Snowbirds. What could I say to make them sound any better right? So I will do my usual copy and paste job straight from the horses mouth (and website). One thing of interest first, the front and side springs will also work in my F1R, so I can test them out there! Looking forward to trying out the .019s fronts in the F1. I bought an extra set of em!

First off is the WGT graphite bumper, 4mm thick, stout, ....
"Pete Robinson did a ton of great testing over the Winter, and we came up with this design.

Besides doing its' obvious job of protecting the front of your chassis, the bumper also gives the car a little more high speed steering especially at the end of the straights.

Pete used one of the 1st production ones to TQ the Snowbirds, and Donny Lia TQ'd and Won the ROAR Nats with one too."

The new .024 Linear Tweak Springs are now available. They are part#5069.

Updated the Linear Tweak Spring Conversions (part#5065) so they include the full range of springs .018 thru .024.

The stiffer Linear Tweak spring was used by Paul L. to win the 2012 Birds in 12th Mod.

It's a set-up that we haven't run for quite a while, but Paulie certainly proved that it is a very viable solution, even with the lighter LiPo cars.

Back in the "round cell" days, I would often set the cars up with our firmer .023 Progressive Tweak Springs hovering about 1mm above the link ends.

This set-up made the cars very smooth & easy to drive "on center", but when the car got into a corner, the chassis would lay over, hit the very firm .023 tweak spring, and presto....instant steering.

The set-up was exactly what we had on Mike Dumas's cars used to win the 2007, 2008 & 2009 ROAR Carpet Nationals.

When we started testing our Linear Tweak Springs, as well as moving the springs in-board, we got away from the "hovering" method.

I think Paulie proved it's something we should at least re-visit in testing.

Maybe you should too.

Here are our new Front Springs.

There are a lot of front suspension springs on the market, but we've always preferred the feel and got our best results from the standard Associated spring.

For years the staples in racing have been the .018, .020 & .022 variety.

In hand and on the track, these springs have always felt/worked the best.

About the only issue everyone has with Associated springs is that they "collapse" way too easily.

So, we met with our "Spring Guy" who has done a tremendous job for us over the years starting with our line of Progressive Tweak Springs and then more recently our Linear Tweak Springs which have been adopted by tons or racers all over the World, and used to win every major race in the past 2 seasons since their introduction.

Our biggest goal was to get that "dampened" feel that only the Asc. springs seem to have....but we didn't want the "hit one board and collapse a spring" syndrome either.

We also wanted a slightly longer spring so the "sweet spot" in the springs' range was larger. Going .020" longer gave the best results.

What we came up with was a front spring that is "pre-worked" by the manufacturer. Through a special process, the spring material is manufactured in a way that it is less susceptible to collapsing while at the same time having a dampened feel that is awesome in hand and works even better on the track.

When SpeedMerchant Team driver Pete Robinson put a set of the new .019's on his Rev.7 at this year's Nats, the first words out of his mouth were...."These things are like R/C Porn". LOL.

Donny Lia ended up TQ'ing & Wining the Nats World GT Class with them on his car & Dumas took 3rd with his World GT. In 12th Mod, Dumas ended up 2nd over all while putting in the quickest 8-minute run of the week taking the win in the 3rd A-Main. We ran the new .019's on both 12th & WGT cars.

By the end of the week, several "Team" guys throughout the building had switched to them..... we got nothing but "Thumbs Up" from those drivers.

The new springs are part #'s....

#7001 = .017" SpeedMerchant Front Suspension Springs

#7003 = .019" SpeedMerchant Front Suspension Springs

#7004 = .020" SpeedMerchant Front Suspension Springs

#7005 = .021" SpeedMerchant Front Suspension Springs

#7001 = .023" SpeedMerchant Front Suspension Springs

I've got the new Optional Top Plates/Shock Mounts up in the on-line store.

Part #1772 is the set for the Rev.7, and part#1773 is for the World GT3.

We've been testing these for a while now, and they are a great tuning aid. Donny Lia just TQ'd and Won the ROAR Nats with the Long/Middle set-up on his World GT3.

Mike Dumas ran Short (stock Top Plate)/Middle on his 12th Mod car taking 2nd overall and putting in the fastest 8-minute run of the week in the final A-Main at the Nats also.

Custom FGX with Front Suspension.

Sean at TQRCRacing posted up these pics of a customers custom Exotek chassis FGX with independent front suspension. I have absolutely ZERO information on this. With the exception of the pics of its awesomeness. No word on performance, but look at it man. Who cares how it drives, that is art! lol Everytime I see a new pic of an FGX I miss mine and forget how much drama it caused me. I know I will have another one someday. But I havent forgotten the nightmare front end yet. Anywhooo, enjoy these pics. As usual, I will post up anything else  I find out.

 

Scuderia Toro Rosso FGX

MikeR of EXOTEK, posted on RCTech earlier this week that he just shipped an FGX/Exotek conversion to Scuderia Toro Rosso in Italy. So that's pretty cool, I've noticed quite a bit of Italian traffic on here today and recently. Perhaps they frequent the site. Well if you do, Good Luck in Shanghai this weekend! And have fun with that Exotek EFX, its a great conversion.

A Few Laps in an F1 car at the LRP Masters 2012

Messing with the WGT3

Still working night shift, so when I get home, the family is asleep. Perfect time to hide out in the Man Cave and mess with toy cars! I have a Speed Passion  Cirtix Stock Spec esc in the WGT. I have had this esc in probably all of my cars at one time or another, not really a big fan of it, brakes seem weak even with the set up box. I acquired an old Novak 4 cell GTB a few months ago that I was thinking of putting in the WGT tonight. So I took the SP out and found the GTB. Turns out I had forgot the reason I wasn't using the GTB in the first place. Wiring was the suck. The wires for the switch and to the Rx are soldered on, and needed re-done, and I didn't want to fool with it. Been planning on sending it to Novak on their Legacy program and getting a new GTB2 or an Edge in replacement, now I am sure I will. Anyway, I put the SP back in, but made some mods. New motor wires, soldered correctly this time. I also took the Deans plug off the battery wires, and replaced with bullet plugs to go straight into the battery. Took out the Futaba 3004 servo, which was just too slow, and put in a HiTec 225BB. This servo is a lot faster and smaller, but its temporary, from what I remember it doesn't re center very well. May have a KO from Zach soon, or I will get another Savox 1251MG. I also moved the Rx location to behind the battery along side the esc and installed a shorter esc-Rx wire so I don't have the birds nest look going like I have on some of my cars. And just because I was already re wiring the car, I blacked out the servo leads and esc leads to the Rx. I think it looks a little better although I am in no danger of being recruited by RC Pit Whores any time soon. Oh yeah and I painted up the other Ferrrari 599 body I bought a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, all I got today, plus pics. Cheers.

Raceday 4/7/12

Light turnout for Mikes on Easter weekend. Still we had 5 different on road classes. Albeit only 3 racers each in 2 of them ( F1 and WGT). Jordan debuted his F104WGP and I think actually won, although he and Robert were jackin around most of the race. I wrecked out on lap 12 when a suspension ball popped out of the front end. Of course a front tire and king pin were still attached at the time. Oh well, I had a good run until then. Car got mean all of a sudden and hard to control, very unpredictable. When I rebuilt front end this evening I noticed a screw had come out of one of the side links. That might explain the why it was so erratic. I improved my lap time down from 12.6 to 12.3 although not consistent. Also geared up a bit. I had geared down for the Nats because I wanted more control vs all out speed (which I couldn't handle). But I've got the car handling a lot better so I wanted to go faster. I changed to the Shimizu F1 soft fronts as well, ps0571, was traction rolling the first heat I tried them, but I liked the response when I didn't roll. So I took an 1/8 turn out of the side springs and it responded well. Was able to run with Jordan and Robert some as long as the nut behind the wheel could hang in there, once I got off a bit I had trouble catching back up. All in all a good day, more practice than racing, but was good.

I also got the Speedmerchant WGT3 on the carpet. Yeah baby. I know, I know, I've never met a new car that I didn't love, but this one was sweet. Since the car was half assembled when SM shipped it, I didn't change any of the stock settings. I just made sure it went straight and gripped it and ripped it. Corner speed is evil. I guess its the wide foams, but man, I am going to like this class. Speed wise, with my usual budget set up as always, (this time a Novak SS 13.5 and Speed Passion Stock Spec) it was about as fast as Roberts. It is not as good in the corners as Roberts, but he has his dialed. Mine is close, only adjustment I made was to add a bit of droop by lengthening the shock shaft a turn or two. He told me we can work on mine and get it there quick. I just didn't have the time to run another pack. I will not be the only SpeedMerchant in the sea of CRC's as Yang Li also will be running one, and since I've been pitting close to him, he's been helping me out with questions as well. So many world class drivers at Mike's. I don't stand a chance of winning, but I am not Charlie Sheen, I'm having a ball running with them.

Next race in 2 weeks, I will have both the F1 and the WGT registered. And in 3 weeks the Summer Carpet Shootout Series begins. Plus soon after that I get to go back to day shift at work! Yes! Thursday night racing here I come!!! Going to be an awesome summer. I'm already jonesing to race again. Looks like a steady diet of VRC-Pro until then. See ya.

NEW Tamiya F104 Version II Pro

Tamiya Press Release for new F-1 chassis

F104 Version II Pro specification chassis kit

The new F104 Version II chassis incorporates a Pivot Ball Link Rear Suspension (PBLR) like the one found on the TAMIYA 1/12 scale RM-01 chassis. Compared to the previous 3-point T-bar rear suspension system, this new setup enables more precise adjustments of the chassis' pitch and roll characteristics. The new car will have greater traction potential and carries more corner speed than the previous chassis design. The kit includes plenty of Option Parts as standard equipment, as its "PRO" designation implies.

Specs and Features

1. 1/10 scale R/C assembly kit.
2. Kit features a newly designed lower deck and a lower brace made from 3.0mm thick carbon fiber.
3. PBLR suspension system features a center pivot ball, an aluminum pitch damper to temper chassis pitch movement, and an aluminum roll damper and side links to control chassis roll.
4. Front suspension features a kingpin/coil spring with the F104’s suspension arms. (Same front end as F104 version I)
5. Direct-Drive 2WD system comes equipped with a height-adjustable gear case and a ball-differential.
6. Other features include a hi-torque servo saver, aluminum servo horn, aluminum upper suspension mount, aluminum clamp-type wheel hubs, low-friction suspension balls, and fluorine coated ball connectors.
7. Compatible with Li-Fe, Ni-Cd, Ni-MH, LiPo and other rectangular battery packs.
8. Body, front & rear wings, motor, tires, R/C unit, battery pack sold separately.
9. Ferrari F60, McClaren MP4-24 and F104 Pro body sets fit the new F104 Version II and the side pontoons may also be used for the best scale appearance.

Release date: June 2012 (late June)

Two Factory Team test cars will be hitting the local circuits in So Cal in early May.

LRP Challenge 2012: F1 A Final

B Main Nats Camera focused on my poor car

Mikes F1 3/31 Q's 1-3

2012 Summer Carpet Shootout Series at Mikes

2012 Summer Carpet Shootout Series

The series will consist of 6 races with 2 throw outs. We will be giving points based off of finishing order, attendance, and top qualifier for the day.
100,98,97 etc. One point for attending and two points for top qualifier. Points won't go with you if you decide to change class. Example, moving from one sedan class to another.

$15.00 for first entry, $10.00 for each additional just like our normal club races. All race days will be on a Sunday
Roar rules.

Jaco Blues will be the spec rubber tire as well as the jaco tire for wgt.

Classes will be:
Wgt 13.5 blinky
17.5 blinky 12th
17.5 blinky tc
mod tc
VTA
F1

Dates:
April 29
May 27
June 24
July 29
August 19
Sept 30

Facebook

Just a reminder that both TC does RC and The F1 Posse are on Facebook. Please like or join or whatever.

Paint on the SpeedMerchant

A little bright.

uf1 test movie

Lightfoot, the man behind the UF1 series, up to his usual stuff making the UF1 even better. Testing camera angles for an upcoming race. Brilliant!

Speedtech Grand Club Race Formula 1 A main 3-31-12

Speed Merchant World GT3 Sport

I got the car today. The plan I laid out worked like a charm. What can I say? Anyway, I built it between F1 heats at the track. Easy build. Most of the components are already assembled. Rear pod, shock mounts, battery stops, and side spring pod are already assembled. All I had to do was piece them together, build the shock, front end and diff. Voila, done. I got the Sport model, because I didn't want the hassle of a complicated front end at first. It is proven and it works, and when the time comes that I want to complicate things ( I will ), I can upgrade. Kit comes with an 88 tooth 64p spur, diff balls, all the bearings and turnbuckles for the links and the steering. I supplied the spec tires, body and electrics. Any bad news you ask? Yes, I didn't have time to run it. Plus it appears that the bodies I ordered (that haven't shown up yet) are on the big side. Sharpie has one of the bodies and showed me, its about 3 inches longer than a DB9. Sharpie also gave me a painted yet unused DB9 to use. So I have options. If the Ferrari doesn't work out, I can use the DB9 and put the Ferrari on a Slash lol. Also with me being me, I had to go run the car out in front of the house around midnight. I just wanted to make sure it was tracking straight and I had everything hooked up properly. I did. Yay me. So I cant really say anything much about the WGT3, it looks good, but I haven't had it on carpet. It did just so happen to TQ the Snowbirds and win the National Title a couple of weeks ago, so I cant imagine me finding much wrong with it. Will it make me an instant WGT bad ass? No. Will it be a good car for me and anyone else that wants to get into World GT? Of course, don't be stupid.

We also did end up having a great crowd for F1 today. Seven. We had the most entries of the on road. VTA, blinky 1/12 and sedan also ran. I improved by 2 laps and was a lot smoother so I am pleased. Racer  Robert of course abused the rest of us mere mortals, although Dougie put some heat on him. I finished 5th after I gave 4th away on the last lap by getting tangled in the tarp just out of reach of a couple of marshals. Lost 11 or 12 seconds there while they got me back on the track. I will post the video as soon as Sharpie gets it uploaded. He videoed every heat of every class today, plus ran in 2 classes. He's an animal folks. An animal. I will also expand on the race report. I have been slacking on the race reports lately. Sorry.